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Can Microsoft Ever Be Accepted by the Linux Community?

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Microsoft

Once, the CEO of the company for which I worked had a bright idea. He would sponsor a young open source software coder for the summer, and, in return, the coder would assign the copyright of his application to the company.

Fortunately, the young coder consulted some lawyers in his family, and refused. His application went on to become a basic tool in the administration of the free desktop. The company, like so many in the Dot-com era that tried to prey upon free software, went bankrupt. The last I heard, the CEO was a supplier to health food stores.

The situation was one of several that caused me to quit the company. But I have flashbacks whenever I see Microsoft maneuvering around free software. When Microsoft alternately tries to attack free software -- for instance, by attempting to sell patents that may affect Linux to patent trolls -- and to ingratiate itself -- for instance, by creating the open source CodePlex Foundation -- I see simply a large scale version of the CEO's behavior.

Both are examples of corporate efforts to exploit free and open source software (FOSS) without changing traditional business practices. Both exhibit a kind of arrogance, as though nobody has attempted such exploitation before -- and as though the community had its collective head too high in the clouds to understand what was being attempted.

rest here




nope

no.

I second that.

Simply, no.

Less simply, MS has too much of a history of trying to extinguish the competition. Many Linux users don't see Linux in competition with MS (we're free to choose!), but MS certainly does see it this way. MS cannot compete, they must destroy by any means necessary, and therefor will continue fighting Linux. Seasoned Linux users don't accept MS because we're using better products on our own terms. New Linux users also don't accept MS and will fight, for a while. But eventually there will be enough new Linux users who want these programs and will be accepting of MS and their closed, crappy software. I fear that day the most.

true dat

I cant stand MS, i just switched off of it completely two months ago with my new desktop build, MS is a giant monster that wants everything there way, they do dirty business such as the recent best buy thing, its not "dirty" but its filling people with lies. Same goes for Apple as well. The future is about being Open with open standards. Thats why linux rocks. and the new sony e reader haha.

re: Microsoft

Somehow with Linux's 1% desktop market share, I doubt Microsoft is losing sleep over it.

And don't confuse the IT Community (which is mostly made of real engineers, techs, managers, etc) with the religious-esque Linux Community (which is mostly made of Stallman-like flakes and fanboys).

The real IT community has no problem mixing Linux and Microsoft and any other OS. They know the ONLY thing that matters is getting the job done well, not wasting huge amounts of time arguing about which icon looks less ugly in Unoobtu, or if a manufacture (or vendor) is *sniff* making small children type code into rusty keyboards.

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